Since the remarkable events in Iran began to unfold, I have been trying to find the voices of women who are speaking out about the crisis. Clearly women are very much a part of what is happening and it is of great concern that women protesters will be at particular risk if they are arrested. Of all the media coverage thus far, the only piece I have seen addressing women’s roles in the political unrest was in the Christian Science Monitor:
What is striking about the Iranians protesting fraud in the June 10 “election” is the number of women on the front lines. Among all those cheated at the polls, they may feel the most denied.
For the first time in one of the Islamic Republic’s controlled presidential campaigns, the women’s movement was able to raise its demands clearly and independently – even though the unelected, 12-member, all-male Guardian Council did not allow any female candidates to run.
The (women’s) movement’s courage to confront the patriarchal theocracy (in which “morality police” still roam the streets looking for women with make-up) may have been a big reason why the regime rigged the vote count – and why supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was forced to make a show of ordering a probe of the fraud.
Aside from the CSM assumption that the vote was rigged is a fact (which is probably true for no other reason than that many ballots could not possibly be hand counted that fast, but has not yet been verified), attributing women’s activism as a chief factor in calling this out is nothing short of amazing.
In another report,
Marjane Satrapi, Iranian author and director and Mohsen Makhmalbaf, an Iranian filmmaker and Mousavi spokesman, presented a document that they claimed had come from the Iranian electoral commission.
The document said liberal cleric and former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi came second in the election with a total of 13.3 million votes, while president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came third with only 5.49 million votes.
However, there is no certainty about the legitimacy of the document.
“Ahmadinejad received only 12 percent of the vote, not 65 percent,” said Marjane Satrapi, who was the director of Oscar-nominated film Persepolis.
Normally a movie director might not be given much credence for unverified information, but given the almost complete breakdown of mainstream media (more about this below) in covering this story, it is worth noting as a possible scenario.
Finally NPR reports:
Security officials posing as clients entered the Tehran offices of one of Iran’s leading human rights lawyers today and arrested him, Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi just told NPR’s Davar Iran Ardalan.
Ebadi, now in Switzerland, said her aides in Tehran tell her other human rights activists have been rounded up as well. She said others who have been arrested include Abdolreza Tajik, a journalist and member of Ebadi’s Human Rights Defenders Center; Saeed Hajjarian, a prominent reformer; and Mohammad Ali Abtahi, another leading reformer.
And, she called on the Iranian government to do three things:
– Free all those, such as Soltani, who have been arrested.
– Stop the “aggressive use of force” against peaceful demonstrators.
– Void the election results and have a new presidential vote “under the auspices of an independent body.”
Feminist Peace Network will continue to pass along the voices of women speaking out about Iran as we become aware of them.
In addition, I do want to note the very significant failure of official news sources in covering this story. In the last several days, the mainstream media, which in recent months has spared no effort to belittle and trivialize Twitter has been, as my father the editor would have said, hoisted by their own petard.
With reporters being severely restricted by the Iranian government, the most accurate, up-to-date reporting is being found on Twitter, You Tube, etc. reported by Iranian citizens with cellphones and cameras, a fact now being acknowledged by the mainstream media (CNN, NYT, NBC, etc.). This effort has been strongly supported by Twitter users who are doing everything they can to help Iranian posters to maintain access and by Twitter itself which postponed scheduled maintenance at the request of Twitter users and the U.S. government in order to keep this crucial information source available. Yes you read that correctly, Twitter 1, U.S. intelligence zip.
While the events in Iran itself are a major story in their own right, the way in which this story is being reported is without any doubt a revolution all its own, and quite possibly the final blow to traditional journalism.
Addenda: No sooner had I posted the above than I came across (via Twitter :-) this excellent piece on Jezebel about the role of women in Iran’s election with additional links to other pieces, definitely a recommended read.
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